Monday, October 19, 2009

so i wrote this back in April, but since this morning was the first time in a month that i finished a good poem, i thought i'd share how that process begins...

i'm sitting here, poised for poetry. i have a song on repeat as usual. this time, it's "merry christmas, mr. lawrence--fyi" from utada's new album (shameless plug). i've listened to this song so much i think the other songs on my playlists are getting jealous. that's the first sign of a visit from the usual muse. i can't focus. that's the second sign. i feel strangely full but unsatisfied, as if the only metaphorical food that will fill me is poetry and the only way to get that food is to empty my soul of all emotion that i feel. that's the third sign, arguably the most important.

somehow...although all of the pieces are in place, the puzzle isn't together. i haven't written a poem in a month, but it feels like even longer than that. and it's not like i have nothing to write about. i'm surrounded by things to say, words to combine, secrets to convey in vague and cryptic ways, people to immortalize in verse. i'm having trouble figuring out what to say even here.

the well has run dry. no ink spills from my pen. my heart prays for the sky to change, for rain to release everything that i feel. but so far...there's not a cloud in the sky.